November 5, Call
Call to me. Jeremiah 33:3
Women raise their hands to ask for blessing from God.
Today, I encourage you in your desire for God’s presence. Truly desire to come before God daily. Hunger for quiet moments with Him.
Do not become satisfied with what I like to reference as “now I lay me down to sleep” prayers. (I assume such repeated childhood prayers are harmless, but such a practice should not define our approach to God.) We must move beyond our personal devotional lives expressing nothing more than a recitation or a routine. For YOU, there must be present the intention of coming before your God privately and meaningfully.
How ardently and consistently do you desire to come into God’s presence? Consider the intention of coming before God devotionally (meaning, in prayer, reading, meditating upon God’s Word, and personally worshipping Him). I have become convicted and convinced that all other disciplines of the devotional life of a believer builds upon one's desire to come into God's presence through meaningful prayer.
When you come before God with the intention of narrowing your focus exclusively upon Him, you then discover the necessity and joy of entering prayerfully into His presence. This divine conversation between you and God builds first upon God’s invitation for you to come to Him prayerfully. God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah such an invitation:
“Call to me, and I will answer you, and I will show you great and mighty things you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)
Jeremiah, as the representative of God’s people, was urged to pray for that which God had promised to grant – the restoration of His own nation. God had revealed to Jeremiah His graces for the erring nation, but the people had forgotten such promises in their rebellion, and thus (according to the previous chapter, 32:23) Jeremiah had forgotten. So, this call to prayer was as much for the prophet as for the people. And God revealed to Jeremiah the essence of His restoration: His covenant and His mercies fully demonstrated in the coming Messiah. And as necessary as this was for Jeremiah to grasp, God first initiated the sacred conversation of prayer, “call to me.” Jeremiah was distracted from the truth God had already spoken. Jeremiah needed the divine recalibration of His soul through meaningful prayer. “Call to me, and I will show you,” said God to His servant. And this invitation remains timelessly before us as well.
Jesus said, “watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). Paul wrote, “Do not be anxious for anything, but by prayer and supplication make you requests known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Jesus once reminded his own followers of the personal necessity of prayer as He instructed that they enter the closet and shut the door, and then pray (Matthew 6:6). Paul reminded the first century church of prayer as a lifestyle when he encouraged ceaseless prayer (I Thessalonians 5:18). And he also reminded the church that the Holy Spirit will give divine aid in personal prayers before God (Romans 8:26).
Today, my fellow partakers of God’s grace, pray! And allow the motivation of prayer to be the simple fact that God has invited you. Jesus reinforced this has He both spoke of and modeled the necessity of prayer. And Paul continued the instructions of our Lord as he emphasized the strong and meaningful practice of prayer in the church.
So today, take time to enter this most sacred conversation with God that we know as prayer. (No childhood recitation nor meaningless expressions of religious language.) Simply come before your God in the name of Jesus and open your heart to Him in prayer. He is waiting, for He is the One who has invited you to come.
Blessings.
READ
Read Jeremiah 33:1-13, and rejoice that God hears and responds.
